Wisdom Strategy Research Institute

The essence of Quad Theory is that there are 4 qualities, or personal attributes that are essential for success at any endeavor, including the attainment of Spiritual Enlightenment. Those 4 qualities are: Love, Wisdom, Empowerment, and Congruence. These 4 qualities are found throughout history in most major philosophies, religions, and even the structure of the government of the United States of America.

Quad Theory was the initial central theme of the Karaam Avatar Research Project. Essentially, this project was about finding viable, workable ways to make tremendous spiritual and personal development progress rapidly, predictably, and consistently.

Lets look at some places where these 4 qualities are found.

The Lords Prayer
The prayer that Jesus taught us in the New Testament of the bible, "Our father, whom art in heaven, halloweth be thine name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for thine in the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen."

Love is hinted at as forgiveness. Love for God is also inferred in reverence for God's, and intending for Gods will to be done.

Wisdom is here in the phrase - "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"

Power - explicitly referenced toward the end of the prayer, and implicitly in, "Give us this day our daily bread." The "Give us this day our daily bread" piece implies that a relationship with God is a way to get our needs met. While it explicity states bread, this can be expanded to the category of food without much conjecture. Food is obviously one of the human needs, while it is a bit of conjecture, it seems plausible enough to expand food to being a metaphor for all of our needs. The ability to meet our needs is power.

Congruence is found in this piece, "thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven". This indicates congruence because a correspondence between heaven and Earth is suggested.

So, we find that the Lords Prayer contains these 4 qualities of Love, Wisdom, Power, and Congruence.

Now, since we are dealing with multiple factors, we are dealing with a system that has these 4 components. Thus we also introduce stabilizing factors of balance, and leverage.

Let's look at another biblical reference:

1 Corinthians 13:13

"Three things will last forever--faith, hope, and love--and the greatest of these is love." from the New Living Translation.

These are also known as the "Theological Virtues".

Love is obviously Love. Hope is empowerment where clarify and define intentions for the future. Faith is a natural by-product of Wisdom. Once you have a significant set of experiences of multiple view points, which I claim is the essence of Wisdom, a calm experience of faith emerges. Part of this is taking a "higher perspective", or "seeing the world through God's eyes". This is sometimes called in NLP the 5th Perceptual Position.

Once again, we find that a famous biblical verse references these 3 qualities of Love, Wisdom, and Empowerment as being significant.

The Serenity Prayer

Let's look at another prayer that reflects these qualities, The Serenity Prayer, apparently composed by Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930's, and shortly thereafter adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous goes, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

Here wisdom is obviously mentioned at the end. Love is present in this prayer in the form of acceptance, and empowerment is in the form of courage. Congruence is perhaps hinted at as the serenity that comes from having the other 3 qualities.

The Four Cardinal Virtues

Prudence - able to judge between actions with regard to appropriate actions at a given time.

Justice - proper moderation between self-interest and the rights and needs of others.

Restraint or Temperance - practicing self-control, abstention, and moderation.

Courage or Fortitude - forbearance, endurance, and ability to confront fear and uncertainty, or intimidation.

Courage and Fortitude rather obviously maps to Empowerment. Prudence, defined as above is also rather obvious as mapping to Wisdom. The others are a bit more subtle.

Restraint or Temperance happens easily and naturally when we are congruent, and aligned in our desires and intentions, when we are not as congruent it takes some combination of Wisdom and Empowerment in order to exercise temperance.

Justice, defined as proper moderation between self-interest and the rights and needs of others, is balanced, healthy Love.

The Refuge Vow

So that we don't limit our inquiry to only a Christian perspective, let us also look at Buddhism. Let's take the Refuge Vow, which is one of, if not the first vow a Buddhist takes. The Refuge Vow goes, "I take refuge in Buddha. I take Refuge in Dharma. I take Refuge in Sangha." There are some non English terms here which can obscure the matter. Dharma is essentially the body of wisdom that exists in Buddhism. Sangha is the Buddhist community. Community can be can be considered the existence or active expression of Love. Buddha would be the inspiring example. Many Buddhists turn to Buddha for empowerment, as well as Enlightenment.

The Tenets of Tae Kwon Do

Years ago, I studied the Korean martial art of Tae Kwon Do. In Tae Kwon Do there is a code of conduct that is taught called the Tenets of Tae Kwon Do. They are Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control, and Indomitable Spirit.

For me they map to Quad Theory like this:

Courtesy => Love

Integrity => Congruence

Perseverance => Empowerment and Wisdom

Self Control => Empowerment, Wisdom, and Congruence

Indomitable Spirit => Wisdom, Congruence, and Empowerment

Sometimes there is not a straight - forward, linear, one to one relationship between various philosophies and Quad Theory. Often times there are overlaps, such as above where one quality really represents a combination of one or more of the components of Quad Theory.

The United States Government

The overall structure of the United States government somewhat reflects these qualities as well. How well the results and actions of the government actually reflects Love and Wisdom is debatable. Nonetheless, the basic structure of the institution does exhibit the qualities.

The check and balance system itself is a form of congruence or balance.

Congress = Love. Congress is a mechanism to represent the interests of each American, therefore expressing a certain esteem, value or if you will, love for each American.

It could also be postulated that Congress embodies wisdom by engendering the consideration of multiple perspectives via debates and committees.

Executive Branch = Power to act.

Judicial Branch = Wisdom. Especially, when considering the role of the Supreme court.

To reiterate, my comments are limited to the design or structure of the government.

Summary

These 4 qualities are found in many places. This suggests that there is a certain universality to them.
Developing these 4 qualities to the maximum appears to be a valid and worthwhile path of spiritual progress and personal evolution.

Namaste,

Robert